The best short story ever written had two and a half words.

The title: Fleas

The content: Adam had 'em.

The author: Bennett Cerf

I hate to sound like a dirty double entendre -- it isn't the length that counts; it's what you do with it.

I know people who can write until the cows come home and have nothing to say. I know others who can string together a few well-constructed sentences and give you the summation of the entire history of the world in either fiction or nonfiction.

A great published science fiction story, circa late forties went something like this ...

"The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door."

Now if that doesn't set your imagination running ...

that was "the shortest science fiction story ever written". if memory serves.

"the last man on earth sat in his room. there was a knock on the door."

memory serves less well on the title to the response, but it was published in the same mag, and shorter by one letter.

"the last man on earth sat in his room. there was a lock on the door."

decades ago, in this more sexually liberal world, i wrote the shortest sexually explicit science fiction story ever written. but never published. so i guess that opportunity may still be open.

i've been away for a long while, but i'd expect the very short tradition continues in science fiction mags. if they continue.

Thanks for the lead, Kat. This sounds like fun to try.

one of the acknowledged masters of "miniaturist" fiction (thank you, rick moody) is amy hempel. ms. hempel, a new yorker who teaches in the graduate writing program at bennington, accomplishes much with seemingly so little. she can confound, but she compels you to consider her words, reconsider them, walk around with her words simmering inside of you. she is a fascinating writer.

here is one of her most economical:

Housewife

"She would always sleep with her husband and with another man in the course of the same day, and then the rest of the day, for whatever was left to her of that day, she would exploit by incanting, 'French film, French film.'"

1997

it is important to note (since we don't enjoy the luxury of italics in these posts) that ms. hempel italicized the word "French" in both instances. In a story so brief, the italics play a significant part.

Kim, I like yours better than the original which I believe was published in Amazing Stories in the late 1940s.

I wrote a fairly short story back in the nineties, and with the permission of the group, I will try to recreate it:

Status Quo: A Horror Story

On a dirty and dreary road close to a river dying from industrial waste, sits two factories. The first one beats swords into ploughshares. The second beats ploughshares into swords.

The end

Oh, I forgot. I had told you that this is a horror story. The horror is that both factories are owned by the same corporation.

The end?

'results' (249 words title inclusive)

k.a. brennan

akabukowski

“I saw Dr. Chan.” Marie’s narrow back was to him as she soaped the dinner dishes.

“Marie! Did you get the results?”

“… yesterday.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Did you get the results?’”

“Yes. We talked about… about many things.”

“Marie, please. What did he tell you?”

“I took the bus, the number 22. I was ten minutes late.”

“And?”

“But Dr. Chan was late too. I waited thirty-five minutes to see him.”

“Marie…”

“There was a tiny old woman waiting too, kind of fossilized, eighty pounds maybe, with a white dog in her lap. She was bald. Her head looked just like a softball except for a few wisps of hair, like silvery filaments, and she…”

“Goddamn it—look at me.” He moved to her and turned her to him. Her eyes were shadowed, shuttered.

“Marie, tell me.”

“Oh, you know how Dr. Chan is… the way he gives you lots of context. About how the scans don’t always tell the whole…”

Matt folded her to him. She felt like a scarecrow, so light, too bony. My sweet wife, he thought. “Marie,” he whispered, inhaling her lilac scent, “is the cancer in remission?”

Marie stiffened, let herself be held. She thought about the sixty Tuinal capsules she had hidden in a balled up pair of socks in her dresser. She thought about taking the trash out. She thought about what she should do with her last six weeks on earth.

I can't believe this - I wrote my story without reading yours first and then went back before posting.